


Strength of Faith

by flinchflower



Series: Slash Me Twice [89]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Hunting, M/M, Memories, Worry, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 08:00:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flinchflower/pseuds/flinchflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt 89: Ball.   John and Pastor Jim have a heart to heart - poor John is worrying again...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strength of Faith

**Author's Note:**

> Copyright notice: I hold the copyright for Mistress Tess & Tessera, original characters, and multiple storylines associated with her. Someday (hopefully sooner than later) you'll see her in a series of novels, I ask that at this time others refrain from use of the character or venue without express permission. She is allowed to play in fanfic, I just request that I know about it. Frankly, I hesitate to post any of the fics with her in them, it's always a struggle... but... here we are. Once the novels are under contract - I may have to take everything with her in them down, hence the warning about borrowing the character.

John realizes, late one night, a whiskey or two into a conversation with Jim, that he’s grown somewhat indifferent to the dangers the demon presents. The ball is in their court, the stakes are clear, and they’re ready to go – if the waiting doesn’t do them all in, first. He shakes his head, tries to clear it.

“Too much hooch, old man?” 

There’s something wrong about sitting with the pastor of a respected church, drinking what the collar refers to as hooch.

“Nah. Too much thinking.”

“You and the boys need a break.” Jim knows that one’s not going to go over well. But he sees things that John doesn’t, hopes the man will respect that. Right now he’s seeing danger in the man’s future if he doesn’t loosen the grip he has on his quest, broaden his focus. The Winchesters are done for, if that happens, just like their unit came close to back in ‘Nam, before a young John had cold-cocked the CO, and dragged the rest of them under cover, ten minutes before a 36 hour firefight had begun.

“Get one after the demon’s done for,” he snaps, then apologizes. Jim isn’t deserving of attitude, though he always seems to be the one who’s on the receiving end of it when things are tight. “Damn Jim, I’m sorry. How the hell do you put up with us,” he asks, thinking of the small community of hunters that Jim cares for – the man feeds them, cleans them up, trains them, gives them weapons, he’s a one man army in himself, and John wonders not for the first time just what ‘Nam taught Jim.

Jim’s laugh is low and dangerous, one John doesn’t hear very often, one he heard more in ‘Nam than back here. “You know that moment, when you’ve got the knife to some sonofabitch, or when you finally watch a grave go up in flames?”

“Yeah,” he says.

“That’s how, Johnny. I might not get out there as often any longer, but that’s how. The job is worth it. And,” he says, laying the weight of his years on the word, “I remember that there’s other things to life, and amuse myself by chasing you sorry boys around reminding you of it.” There’s more to it, but there aren’t words, and John will just have to read between the lines.

Damn it. Jim can talk someone in a circle better than anyone John knows, though Sam’s bidding fair to grow up like him. “Spill it, Jim. Don’t talk me in circles.”

“You need a break, John. It’s too risky for you to be hunting, but you’re gonna get rusty, sitting here. Let some of us get the intel you need, you go out and take a break. Take the boys down to the ocean, maybe. They need it as much as you do.”

“Jim,” he says, frustrated, “We’ve done nothing BUT downtime this year-“

“No. You haven’t. You’ve been racing around getting your son prepared for what’s happening, and hunting between times, and it may not rack up the same number of hash marks on the inside of your helmet, but it counts, Winchester. Go. Do it. Think of it as another way to keep those boys of yours safe, by taking them out of the picture until the time’s closer.” The man needs to listen, but he’s always known that Winchester was carved out of a pure block of stubborn, confirmed it the one time he met John’s father before he died. Jim had buried him, with John looking on and refusing to just cry. It had taken whiskey and a long night that time, too, to get John to see the truth.

“Jim, this demon, it comes out of nowhere –“

“Then stay here. But STOP with the working. I need to get back to my church, you know that, and I’m going to take Missouri over to Bobby, I think. Mathieu will stay with Tess until it’s over, and you Winchesters, well, we all know you’ll fetch up somewhere when this is done, and you’re welcome with any of us.” It’s an understatement, but the best he can do for all of them. Someday, if the evil ever turns tail and runs for good, they think about a community of hunters, a damn commune, if you will. Jim can’t help it if he was young and impressionable in the sixties.

“But-“

“John Winchester. Intel you’ve got says that it’s building, it’s NOT TIME. You’ve got leagues of hunters and researchers turning up what they can, expecting that you’re preparing yourself, counting on you to be the one who has the tickets to the finale. You go into this hunt in the shape you went the last time you confronted it? You’re gonna come out with your boys having to carry you out feet first – the Good Lord only knows we thought you weren’t coming back last time, in that hospital in South Dakota? Damn it, man, you don’t dare pull something that stupid this time.”

John sits stubborn, and Jim’s looking at him narrowly. Tolerance is over, and it’s time for action. He doesn’t remember the last time John gave him this much trouble, but he sure as hell remembers what to do when it happens.

“Maybe I ought to give Beau Riordan a call,” he says, and watches John choke on the whiskey.

“You wouldn’t-“ But John knows better, even as he protests. Only twice before has Jim ever made the damn threat – once just before he met Mary, and once after her death, both times he was close to suicide. “Fine,” comes the short answer, “You’ve got my attention.”

“Much as I hate to say it, let the boys have some time together. Stay here, maybe, spend time with Tess. Heaven help me, I need to be back in my church and not with you lot, I’m doomed if I spend much more time with you,” he says gently, and John is startled, that he knows about the boys particular relationship. It must show on his face, because Jim’s next words are compassionate, and quiet. “I don’t approve, John. But there’s something to be said for love, and how important it is, and I think God would give this one a pass, if he took a look at the circumstantial evidence. And if that’s repeated to anyone other than Sam or Dean?” He doesn’t finish the threat. John’s an intelligent man, after all.

“Jim.” The name hangs there for a while. “Let me think it over.”

“That’s all I want to hear, Johnny,” he says, and lays a hand over John’s scarred one, traces the sign of the cross that ought to show on John’s skin by now, the number of times Jim’s blessed him now, conscious or unconscious. “Go get some sleep.” 

He’ll make mention of the fact that John actually listened, when he prays tonight. God’s always listening, and hopefully the Winchesters have a guardian angel somewhere close by.


End file.
